The Observatory for the Protection of Human
Rights Defenders, a partnership of FIDH and the World Organisation Against
Torture (OMCT), has received new information and requests your urgent
intervention in the following situation in Belarus.

New information:

The Observatory has been informed by reliable
sources about the arbitrary arrest and judicial harassment of Mr. Vladimir
Velichkin, an environmental rights defender and member of the Human Rights
Center “Viasna” (HRC “Viasna”)[1], as well as other 17 environmental
defenders,in the context of the
repression of an environmental protest movement against the construction of a
battery plant in Brest[2].

According to the information received, on April
12, 2019, Mr. Vladimir Velichkin was arrested at the Leninsky police department
in Brest, after being summoned by the police to appear at the precinct. Nine
other environmental defenders—Ms. Ekaterina Basargina andMessrs.
Dmitry Androsyuk, Vladimir Kozlovsky, Denis Malashenko, Sergey Svirsky,
Vladislav Abramovich, Oleg Yarmolenko, Demyan Lepesevich, and Oleg
Vyalov— were arrested at the Leninsky police department on the same day.
Mr. Dmitry Androsyuk and Ms. Ekaterina Basargina were released several hours
after the arrests. Others spent three days in a temporary detention facility of
the department. All ten defenders, including Mr. Andrasyuk
and Ms. Basargina, were summoned before the Leninsky District Court of the city
of Brest for a hearing on April 15, 2019.

At least eight other protesters—Ms. Tatyana
Fesikova and Messrs. Alexander Kabanov, Dmitry Bekalyuk, Ales Ablyak, Yegor Kondratyuk,
Vitaly Kozak, Victor Sender, and Nikolay Trotsyuk—were
arrested on April 14, 2019, while they were protesting on Brest’s Lenin Square
against the construction of the battery plant. They
were also summoned before the Leninsky District Court of the city of Brest for
a hearing on April 15, 2019. Mr. Alexander Kabanov was released three
hours after his arrest.

According to the information received, Mr.
Vladimir Velichkin and most of the other protesters were arrested under Article
23.34 of the Belarus Code of Administrative offences for violating the
procedure for organizing or holding mass events. The charges are related to the
protest along Brest’s Sovetskaya Street on April 7, 2019, during which people
chanted slogans against the construction of the plant. Ms. Tatyana Fesikova was
accused under the same Article 23.34 for handing out yellow balloons with a
protest appeal on March 31, 2019. Mr. Dmitry
Bekalyuk was summoned to the Court as a witness in the case of Ms. Fesikova
but was later accused of being three hours late to the precinct.

The hearings in the
cases of all 18 defenders took place at the Leninsky police department in
Brest, on April 15, 2019. Media and human rights defenders were not
allowed to attend the hearings as observers. The Court postponed the
consideration of cases of those arrested on April 12, 2019 —Messrs. Vladimir
Velichkin, Dmitry Adrosyuk, Vladimir Kozlovsky, Denis Malashenko, Sergey
Svirsky, Vladislav Abramovich, Demyan Lepesevich, and Oleg Vyalov—to April 18,
2019. The hearing in the case of Vitaly Kozak will be held on April 24, 2019. The hearings in the cases of Ms. Tatyana
Fesikova and Messrs. Yegor Kondratyuk, Ales Ablyak, and Victor Sender were
postponed to April 25, 2019.

The Observatory recalls that this is not the
first time Messrs. Vladimir Velichkin, Alexander Kabanov and Vitaly Kazak are
arrested and that other human rights defenders have been targeted for their
participation in protests against this battery plant in Brest, such as Mr. Roman
Kysliak[3]. It emphasises
that the Belarusian legislation violates the right to peaceful assembly by
unjustifiably prohibiting citizens to hold peaceful assemblies without
authorisation. In Belarus, the authorities routinely reject requests to hold
peaceful assemblies related to practically any human rights or other societal
issue, either without providing adequate reason or by referring to the law that
requires organisers to ensure first medical aid during the event and to
subsequently clean the event venue[4].

The Observatory condemns the arbitrary arrest and
judicial harassment of Messrs. Vladimir Velichkin and all the other 17
environmental defenders above mentioned, as they seem to be only aimed at
punishing them for their legitimate and peaceful exercise of the right to
freedom of association and assembly.

Background information:

On February 16, 2019, Mr. Vladimir Velichkin was
arrested at the Leninsky police department in Brest, after being summoned by
the police to appear at the precinct. After his arrest, he spent two days in a
temporary detention facility of the department. On February 18, he was summoned
before the Leninsky District Court of the city of Brest. The Court found him
guilty of participating in an unauthorized mass event under Article 23.34 of
the Belarus Code of Administrative offences and sentenced him to a fine of
382,5 Belarusian rubles (approximately 156 Euros).

The charges related to a rally organised to
protest the construction of a battery plant in Brest— which took place on
December 30, 2018 and was attended by around 170 protestors. The rally was the
45th in a series of related protests that have been held on the
Lenin square in Brest every Sunday since February 25, 2018.

On December 30, 2018, Mr. Vladimir Velichkin,
who participated in this rally as well as in numerous previous rallies against
the battery plant, gave a brief interview to online blogger Mr. Sergei
Petrukhin. The Court considered that the message he passed during the interview
contained “negativity towards the authorities and attracted the attention of
citizens”, which formed the basis for his arrest and subsequent charges.

Mr. Vitaly Kazak was arrested and placed in the
same temporary detention facility as Mr. Vladimir Velichkin—the Leninsky police
department in Brest—on February 16, 2019. He was accused of “organizing an
unauthorized mass event in an inappropriate location involving a citizen of a
foreign state” (Article 23.34 of the Code). The court found him guilty and
charged him with 1,020 Belarusian rubles (approximately 419 Euros).

In the morning of February 17, 2019, in the city
of Bereza, the police arrested Mr. Alexander Kabanov. At time of the arrest he
was at the Bereza railway station, as he was going to Brest to join the Sunday
rally as usual. Mr. Alexander Kabanov posted on his Facebook page that he was
arrested for participating in a rally in Brest on February 10, 2019. He was
brought to Bereza police department and released following questioning on the
February 10, 2019 events.

Guarantee in all
circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Messrs. Vladimir
Velichkin, all the other 17 environmental defenders above mentioned, and
all human rights defenders in Belarus;

Comply with all
their international obligations to respect the exercise of the citizens’
right to freedom of association and assembly, as established in the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in particular its
Articles 21 and 22;

Comply with the
provisions of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, in
particular with its Articles 1, 2, 5 and 12.2;

Ensure in all
circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in
accordance with international human rights standards and international
instruments ratified by Belarus.

Please also write to the
diplomatic representations of Belarus in your respective countries.

***

Paris-Geneva, April 17,
2019

Kindly inform us of any action undertaken
quoting the code of this appeal in your reply.

The Observatory for the
Protection of Human Rights Defenders (the Observatory) was created in 1997 by
FIDH and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). The objective of this
programme is to intervene to prevent or remedy situations of repression against
human rights defenders. FIDH and OMCT are both members of ProtectDefenders.eu,
the European Union Human Rights Defenders Mechanism implemented by
international civil society.

[2] The construction of the plant is largely
criticised by ecological defenders and civil society of Belarus. They claim
that the battery factory constructed 7 km away from the city will pollute the
environment of Brest and the Brest region. Human rights defenders highlight
that the plant facilities are being built with numerous irregularities in terms
of security and environmental norms. Since the beginning of 2018, a civil
campaign has been underway against the construction of the battery plant in Brest.
In February 2018, a petition of about 40,000 signatures against the
construction was transferred to the Administration of the President of Belarus.
Since February 25, 2018, every Sunday, protesters assemble peacefully and silently
on the Lenin Square in Brest to express their opposition by feeding pigeons on
the square. When organisers started the protests, they sought authorisation
from the authorities, yet they only got one authorisation (in April 2018) while
all other requests were denied. Therefore, protesters decided to simply
assemble and feed pigeons or carry balloons in sign of protest.